Calling time on excluding women from the exclusive, men only Tattersall’s Club

An email campaign ahead of a historic vote on whether to allow women into Brisbane’s Tattersall’s Club tells members four ways to they can “help preserve our single-gender membership structure”.

The first settling day held in Tattersall's new clubrooms, in the Tattersall's Club Brisbane on August 2, 1926

“HERE are four things you can do to help preserve our single-gender membership structure,’’ says the email which began circulating this week after Brisbane’s historic Tattersall’s Club announced the contentious issue of allowing women members would go to the vote.

Tatt's has become bitterly divided over the issue of female membership since The Courier- Mail broke the story in late September that club president Stuart Fraser was emailing members, seeking views on a range of reforms including whether to allow women as fully fledged members.

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“Distribute our no case to as many members as possible, as soon as possible,’’ the email advises.

“Ring five fellow members and discuss the issues at stake and explain why you believe a no vote is necessary.

“Visit the Club for a meal or a drink and, while you’re there, make the case to other members for why a no case must be put forward.’’

The rarefied environs of the Tattersall's Club in Brisbane

The fourth instruction involves reading an erudite piece in the Australian edition of the right-wing British magazine, The Spectator.

That article references the Greek philosopher Aristotle in its defence of male bonding, then makes the surprising case that these custodians of the patriarchy, these privileged (largely white) males, these gatekeepers of the Queensland ruling class, may actually need a “safe space’’.

There are no less than 17 all-female clubs in Brisbane, writes Charles Graves (using a nom de plume) in the article.

“All this is in stark contrast to the growing recognition that an epidemic of male suicides, mental illness and other male health issues can only be addressed by providing men with the same opportunities to talk and meet securely with other men that we enthusiastically provide to women.’’

It’s 2018. It’s been 12 years since the last vote on allowing women as members split the exclusive club which has catered to wealthy graziers, politicians, lawyers, judges and a smattering of ordinary working men across three centuries, and bills itself as “your home away from home since 1865’’.

Since 2006 Australia has had a female prime minister in Julia Gillard and, in Queensland, two female Queensland premiers in Anna Bligh and Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Mike Evans

Stuart Fraser

In State Parliament Jackie Trad sits behind the premier as deputy and treasurer; opposite both of them sits Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington, while in the mayor’s office of Townsville, the most populous Australian city north of the Tropic of Capricorn, resides Jenny Hill.

Queensland’s first law officer is Yvette D’Ath, Queensland’s chief justice is Catherine Holmes, Australia’s chief justice is Queenslander Susan Mary Kiefel.

If there was even such a thing as a battle of the sexes in Queensland, surely the war has been comprehensively won by the army with the two X chromosomes.

Yet here in this historic club in Queen St there appears to be a band of hardy soldiers fighting on, much like those Japanese who prowled the Papua New Guinea jungle firing at shadows two decades after the end of World War II.

When Fraser announced a review of club culture in late September he was deliberately low key.

Fraser incorporated a range of issues up for discussion in the email which went out to members, including dress standards and the use of club space. But he well knew the only inflammatory issue guaranteed to spark clashes was the matter of whether or not to allow women as full-time members.

In the two months since the announcement, The Courier-Mail has closely followed the factional warfare that has erupted in the club, with several members who head up internal clubs stood aside as views have hardened and the lobbying intensified.

Former Nationals MP Bill O’Chee is rallying behind the ‘no' vote.

Ex-Nationals MP Bill O’Chee has reanimated his political persona of the 1990s.

A long time Tatt’s member, O’Chee is rallying behind the “no” vote which is also believed to have the support of the newly minted Conservative activist movement “Advance Australia,’’ established as a counter weight to the left wing “GetUp!’’.

On the “yes’’ side former National Party director Mike Evans is appealing to the simple logic of allowing women to participate in Tatt’s in the same manner they participate in every other aspect of life.

Yet this debate has a different ambience to the long-winded and highly emotional one which preceded the 2006 vote.

Tatt’s members wanting to exclude women in 2006 appeared to be manning the ramparts against an invading horde. This time round they appear more as anxious men, begging for the retention of a safe refuge. And that mood reflects a change in the atmospherics surrounding gender debates which has developed in the past 12 years.

The rise of women to positions of prominence both domestically and internationally has been accompanied by a growing awareness of serious health, educational and financial problems being experienced by Australian men. The most pressing issue is suicide. According to Lifeline, three times as many Australian men die by suicide than women, and it is the young males who are most vulnerable.

An internal Tatt’s survey found young men at the club below the age of 35 are the only age group united against the move to allow women as members.

Brisbane’s Tattersall's Club in October 1983

That fascinating statistic dovetails with recent research by the University of Canberra on gender equality across the nation.

The research project – “From Girls to Men: Social Attitudes to Gender Equality Issues in Australia’’ – found it was the Millennial males who were significantly more likely to “’agree/strongly agree’’ with the statement: “Men and boys are increasingly excluded from measures to improve gender equality.’’

But another voice from the “no’’ camp this week suggests in an email that many Tatt’s men are so desperate for their club to maintain its single-sex-status they will walk out the door should women be granted full membership rights.

“There is a grave risk of losing many passionate and dedicated members who cherish our single gender status and who will resign from, or significantly decrease, their usage of the club,’’ the email says.

“Women are presently welcome in virtually all areas of the club.

“We respect and defend the right of women to have single gender clubs and organisations. There are 17 of them in Brisbane.

“Similarly we hold that Tatt’s has the same right.’’

To Margaret Henderson, lecturer in literature area in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland and author of Marking Feminist Times: Remembering the Longest revolution in Australia, the entire debate has become a bit odd. To Dr Henderson the very notion of the Tatt’s Club has a whiff of our long forgotten colonial past.

High-profile Brisbane businesswoman Sarina Russo outside the Tatt’s Club

This is because power is no longer concentrated in an old boys networks and distributed by men in sports jackets drinking whiskey in mahogany-lined libraries. The world has become much more fluid as gender becomes increasingly irrelevant in matters of status.

“I think social networking is still very important but it is clearly being done differently,’’ Henderson says.

Henderson suspects there is something slightly unhealthy about keeping sexes rigidly separated.

“It seems a bit childish ‘what, you don’t want to talk to me because I’m a powerful woman’?’’

One of the state’s most successful businesswomen continues to cling to her long-held desire to sign in as a full member and walk into Tatt's as an equal to all men present.

On a December night in 2006 Sarina Russo had waited outside Tatt’s as the vote on the matter of female membership was debated one last time before the ballot was taken.

The motion, recommended by seven of the 10-man committee, was rejected in a close vote (1683 to 1577) after a fierce debate in which then president Peter Carroll and other committee members came under severe criticism for supporting the “yes” case.

Russo, who in 1979 opened a typing school with nine students and parlayed that into a global employment and training centre with 1000 staff, is the sort of person Tatt’s has historically tapped on the shoulder and enthusiastically invited in as a member.

But after the vote she was told “no” – her bid for full-time membership was not acceptable.

Twelve years on Russo’s membership card at the heritage-listed building at the bottom of Queen St is still a dream, but one she believes has a reasonable chance of materialising into reality.

And it may be a nice festive season for her, as the nearly 5000 members are expected to receive their ballots next week, and the matter be settled by Christmas.

When asked what advice she would give to the men of Tattersall’s Club as they weigh up their views on the vote expected to be taken in the New Year she said simply: “Tell em’ to just do it.”

Email Michael Madigan